All Different Kinds
by GirlonaBridge
Summary: This started when my imagination ran away with the phrase "She's all yours" and the looks between Rachel, Gill and Helen in the Series 3 trailer. It has now taken on a life of its own. I'm sorry to say I have very little idea where it's going except that it's me exploring the strange relationships between the three of them by making them stranger.
1. Chapter 1

'Her own mother, though. God!'

Gill lifts her wine glass and waves it dangerously, sketching a circle of outrage in the air before bringing it to her lips. Rachel watches, blinks slowly.

'I mean,' the glass is poised in mid-air, 'I've seen it all. Everything. This job. It's not the first time.'

Rachel's eyes are fixed on the fingernails that tap and hold the glass, the same colour as the swirling wine. As much as she'd like to see and not hear, see all of Gill's delicate features and not hear any of her hard brutal words, she can't block out the sound.

'But her own mother. You'd never think she was capable of it, if you didn't do a job like ours, would you?'

Rachel needs to be a whole lot more drunk. She needs to be incapable of hearing, incapable of thinking, incapable of speaking. But she's not. She's just at the stage of saying something that will get her in to trouble.

'It's not as if she was a proper mother though.' Gill's eyebrows shoot up. Rachel keeps going.

'Not like your Mum, or Janet's. She barely even knew her.' The eyebrows dropping and eyes narrowing make Rachel notice the defensive tone in her own voice.

'They were practically strangers,' she mumbles, hoping that will be an end of it.

'Strangers don't brutally murder each other.' Gill says blankly. Rachel doesn't even get her mouth half open to protest before Gill cuts her off.

'Well, sometimes they do, but not like that. The whole psychology of that killing was personal.'

'So if they're pretty much strangers to each other, why do you even suspect her?' Rachel can't help herself. She doesn't even know why she's fighting for this woman, who definitely is a stranger to her, just another suspect encountered in the line of duty. She doesn't understand why she's suddenly worth starting a row with her boss over.

'That's the point.' Gill slams her glass down hard. The table quivers. It's too late to back out now. Rachel has started something that she cannot stop.

'They're not strangers. There's enough feeling and history between them to make anything possible.'

Rachel is getting hot. Unbidden, she hears her own voice, the words of two days ago... _Why don't you just get out of my life? I never wanted to see you again. I never want to see you. _Her own mother's face - she can't remember Sharon's expression when those words came flying at her, vision twisted by rage. Rage. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. All those excuses that Rachel has heard so many times before. Motives.

Gill is looking at her funny. Rachel grabs the bottle and tops her glass up, swigs half of it back in one mouthful before even thinking to offer it to Gill.

'Crime of passion.' Rachel blurts it out as she's pouring the wine.

Gill's eyes snap up and Rachel's hand slips sideways even though she's got her eyes glued to what she's doing. Wine almost splashes everywhere but Gill shifts her glass, ever so slightly, just in time. There's a small slosh in the glass and tiny drops fly up to spatter their hands. Rachel raises her head.

'A crime of passion, that's what the psych said, right? That's not mother and daughter.'

'There's all different kinds of passion Rachel.'

Gill holds her gaze. Rachel opens her mouth to speak then realises that she has no idea what she is about to say.

'Hey,' Gill says gently, touching Rachel's knee. 'What's up?'

Rachel shakes her head and tries not to jump, either away from or towards the hand. She's not sure which she would way rather go. She's not sure what's up with her tonight either. Something is bugging her but she doesn't know what and she'd rather not try and work it out. Things won't leave her alone, images keep niggling at her mind. That woman, Helen, with her scruffy jeans and her skinny, snappable arms and her enormous eyes. Rachel has sunk a bottle and a half of wine already but she still hasn't manage to drown the image of those eyes yet. She doesn't get it. She doesn't usually let work get to her like this. And nor does Gill. What is with that? The boss has been going on about this woman for the past half hour. A strange dark feeling that has been lurking in her belly all along starts to take shape. Rachel thinks of the way Gill watched Helen down the corridor from custody. What was she thinking? What's she thinking now?

Gill's hand pressing harder on Rachel's knee brings her back to the present, the table in the pub, the late hour, the nearly empty bottle of red wine, Gill.

She wants to stop thinking, badly. The drink isn't working. There is only one thing she can think of that will do it tonight.

She rests her hand on top of Gill's for a second.

'Can we get out of here?'


	2. Chapter 2

**This was supposed to be a one-shot but it has taken on a life of its own. I don't know where it's going, except that it's dark and is probably going to get bits of inspiration from each new episode but have no real plot whatsoever. Thank you for reading if you can put up with it.**

* * *

It's not something she understands. It's not anything she's proud of. It's odd, peculiar even. It's just sex. Purely physical. A tension breaker. An escape from real life. Something else to feel guilty about. It's an attempt to blank out everything that lives in the back of her mind – the voices, the images, the dreams that bother at her. It's stupid and she knows she should stop it but she doesn't because it works.

They get a room somewhere, these days, since Gill won't take her back to hers and Rachel has Sean to worry about now. It never affects their working relationship. It has nothing to do with work. It's not something they talk about or plan. Every once in a while, when a few drinks have been had, when things get too much, it just happens.

'We shouldn't be doing this.' Gill says it every time. 'You especially shouldn't be doing this.'

But Rachel kisses her hard and pushes her back through the door. Gill never says it twice and she never says stop.

.

'You know, I really don't think she did it.'

'Rachel.'

Rachel blinks at the warning in Gill's voice. She is staring at the ceiling and has spoken without thinking. This is breaking the rules, talking about work. She is supposed to break the long silence by saying she has to go, but tonight she has darker things on her mind. She wishes they would go away but she cannot get that woman's eyes out of her head. They have been staring at her from the blank ceiling for the last ten minutes.

'I'm serious. She's too... scared.'

'Fear can be a powerful motivator.' She's put Gill's back up, she can tell by the switch to DCI voice, but Rachel's used to it.

'You didn't hear the way she talked about it - "that house." Why would you deliberately go somewhere that scared you that badly?'

'Some people... are like that.'

Rachel blushes slightly at the barb. She's not going to let it stop her though.

'Not when they're as terrified as she was.'

'Why are we even talking about this now?'

'I just think...'

'No. You don't just think. This is why we work from evidence, not hunches. And you, lady, need to learn to leave your work behind at your desk.'

Rachel bridles. What the hell has she done wrong? Ok, so she probably should have kept her mouth shut, a big Bailey-family failing that – not knowing when to keep your mouth shut – but still, this is a bit much coming from the queen of workaholics. She wants to snap at her, tell her exactly where she gets off, but somewhere along the line Gill-her-lover has turned into Gill-the-boss and snapping at the boss is never a wise idea. Rachel hunches her knees up and watches sullenly as Gill collects herself. Is there jealousy, she wonders; is Gill jealous that she is thinking about this woman, Helen? But that would be weird. Rachel licks her lips, which are strangely dry. Maybe this is weird.

'Right. I'm off.' Gill tugs her jacket straight, looks down at Rachel.

'Right.' Rachel looks back.

For a long awkward moment, Rachel wonders if Gill will lean over, try to hug her or drop a kiss on her head or her cheek. She doesn't. Instead, she jerks her head sharply, turns on her heel, and goes.

Rachel feels some of the tension start to eke out of her spine. Thank God. Goodbyes are always fraught, she finds. If you're going, go, and let her get on with getting over it, that's what she thinks. She needs time to deal with the emptiness left behind, before she can carry on like nothing happened.

…

It's not something she understands. It's not anything she's proud of. It's odd, peculiar even. It's just sex. Purely physical. A tension breaker. An escape from real life. Something else to feel guilty about. It's a miserable attempt to blank out everything that lives in the back of her mind – the voices, the images, the dreams that gnaw at her. It's stupid and she knows she should stop it but she doesn't because it works. For a little while.

Helen always parks in the same spot. She can see the bins down an alley to her left, the last three letters of an illuminated sign round the corner up ahead, _ets_. She has no idea what the rest of it is. She is opposite the first of a row of steel shutters, painted dark colours and rusting, pretty obvious that no one much cares. A bad place to be at night maybe, depends on what you're there for. Rihanna jigs her hands continuously when she's sitting still. She's got scars all up her forearms, old ones. Hard to tell if they're from using, or a somebody hurt or, or if she did them herself. Helen doesn't ask and Rihanna hasn't told her yet. Rihanna tells her a lot. She talks, low and fast, about all sorts. It's better now that Helen doesn't have to talk back hardly at all. She doesn't have to tell her what she wants.

The first time was horrible. Helen still feels a part of herself crawling inside if she thinks of it. She hated saying it out loud, even more than she hated doing it. Rihanna got that. She caught on real quick, it's why Helen stuck to her. That's what was so awful about today, in that interview, having to admit to what she did. It sounded so awful out loud. And that detective woman looking at her with that fake sympathy. The questions. The way she just wouldn't leave her alone. Helen couldn't cope. She shouldn't be doing this, especially not tonight but she needs it badly - something simple after all those questions. And Helen is used to hating herself. It's something she can deal with. It reminds her she is alive.

It hits her particularly hard whenever she lets Rihanna out of the car. She pushes the notes into her chilly hand and nods at the taut little smile she gets in return. The girl is still young, by most people's standards. She's still young enough to smile, a little, when she doesn't need to. The door slams and she clacks away down the street to her usual stretch. Helen wonders if she was ever that young. Not by nineteen. Not even by nine.

She puts the car in gear and drives on. She needs to find a pub, a bar, a club even. Somewhere she hasn't been in before. Somewhere she can get a drink. Everything is too loud tonight, too clear, to near inside her head. The hate is heavy in her belly, sickening her, making her mouth dry out so that she swallows nothing again and again. She needs to stop. She needs to make it all stop.


	3. Chapter 3

The buzz of her phone jerks Rachel back to attention again. She's not sure how long she has been sitting, staring, thinking nothing. She hasn't a clue where her phone is either, she realises, panicking. A mad scramble through her heap of clothing reveals nothing. The phone stops then starts again almost at once.

'Shit shit shit,' she mutters, staggering across the room to her discarded jacket. Phone in pocket, of course.

_Mum calling._

'Oh piss off.' She slams the phone down on the desk thing, dressing table, whatever it was. It buzzes away for another minute, glowing slightly. Rachel glares at it until it shuts up.

It was a mistake, letting her mum back in her life. It was stupid to think that that woman could ever do her any good and it was even more pathetically stupid to think that she, Rachel, could do anything for her mother. She hadn't changed, except to get even more ridiculous. Or maybe she had always been that awful and Rachel hadn't quite noticed. You have a different take on things when you're just a kid, and at that age she hadn't known anything better. The height of her aspirations back then had been a mum who put food on the table every night. It wasn't until she had gone to secondary school that she had realised that parents could be so very different from her own.

But she has changed. She's like a different species. She thinks her brain must be wired up differently or something. Not better, necessarily. Her stupid, good-for-nothing, pissed-to-her-tits, shit-for-brains mother is at least happy. She's having a whale of a time pissing her life away and screwing up everyone else's around her. Rachel hates for it. For that and for acting like she owns her.

'Get lost,' she shouts at the phone as it beeps for a text message. She ignores it while she gathers all her stuff together and pulls on her clothes. She checks carefully that she has all the important things and that neither of them have left anything behind. Only at the last moment does she pick up the phone and, sighing, hits the button just to check.

_1 message received_

_Sean_

Rachel groans.

_What time you workin til? XXXX_

She pushes her hair out of her face, stares at the screen. Then her fingers fly.

_It's a late one. Don't wait up._

At the last second, she remembers to add an _x. _There is a bar down the road, she thinks as she slams the door behind her. She needs another drink. She needs to not go home.

…

Helen finds a place with a blue sign. She forgets what it's called but she's pretty certain she's never been in before and there is a bit of parking round the corner that is handy. It's busy and noisy with music and people shouting over it. There is a fuggy heat of too many bodies in a cramped space. She has to squeeze between them to get to the bar. Nobody even turns round. She orders a double and manages to find a corner nearby that is empty and dark, a good spot. It is good to be somewhere with things to distract her, good to be somewhere where she doesn't have to be herself, at least she can try not to be herself. She is trying not to be anybody. Not working of course, the images keep on coming.

That Detective woman today, poking at her with her questions. Or was it yesterday? Yesterday was worse. Last night in that cell, that was the worst. Bare concrete walls, the dark, hard floor, silence and empty air and the cold. It was like... She didn't get it, that woman, how it made Helen feel. She had felt the weight of the whole building pressing down on her, she knew, she just knew that she was being buried alive. All that dark around her. No one there. Not even Julie.

Helen struggles to refocus her eyes, to bring herself back to the present, to breathe and not to scream. She is standing in a bar. There are people all around her. She is forty-five years old. Nobody is going to hurt her. Nobody is going to get her.

She is shaking and her glass is empty. At least "what can I get you?" is an easy question to answer. These police, thinking they could just barge into your life and ask you anything, making you answer them, making you think and remember things. It's not fair. She doesn't want to think about them. Ever. She doesn't even want to think about murdering them, or about them being dead. Dead in the ground for years. It makes her sick. She does everything she can to not think about them, even things she is ashamed of. Like now, she should be at home now, with Louise who is probably going out of her mind wondering what's going on, Louise who takes care of her and puts up with her and takes her as she is, day to day. She should be going back to their little life and doing what she can to get on with it. But she is here, doing this, she's been out all evening doing these things she hates because that is the only way she can go back and face her life again. She has to.

Her glass is empty again so she elbows her way through the thin line of bodies to the bar again. She is just turning away, raising the glass when she bumps hard into another woman leaning into the bar. She mutters sorry without looking up. The stupid bitch has spilled her drink all over her hand and Helen swears steadily under her breath all the way back to her corner. She wipes her hand across her mouth, trying to lick it dry surreptitiously. She glowers over in the direction she came from, wondering who it was, and she sees her. Helen's hand tightens round her glass. It can't be her. She swallows hard. It can't be.


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm just going to put this up quickly before this week's episode comes along and blows my mind. Thank you for reading and sticking with the strange.**

* * *

The woman at the bar now has a large glass of red wine cradled in her hands. She looks tired, or sad, or pissed off maybe. She looks lonely. Helen's hand shakes, the dark liquid in her glass sloshing about slightly. She takes a hefty sip to calm her nerves, then another. The woman at the bar hasn't noticed her, mustn't have seen who she bumped into. She is looking about the room with a slow, steady gaze. Maybe she is looking for someone. Maybe she is looking for her. Helen's heart beats faster, louder. That's what they do, isn't it? When they know where to look, they act casual, try to blend in, look without looking like they're looking. Maybe there are more of them about, all over the place. What can they have found? What can they want with her? Helen swallows more and more, keeping her eyes fixed on the woman at the bar whose gaze hasn't yet reached her corner. She can't go back in. She can't be locked up again tonight, not tonight. The floor, the walls, the dark, the smell, the hard hard... hard...hard... the voice at the door... the dark... the dark... Helen's shoulders heave as she struggles to breathe, fast and heavy, sucking at the air, swallowing it, dragging it into her lungs.

She cannot do this.

Her glass is empty.

Again.

That woman is at the bar.

Helen needs a drink.

And all in an instant she is angry.

.

Rachel cups her wine glass and tries to enjoy the taste of it. She perches on a barstool because she simply cannot be arsed to find anywhere else to sit in this crowded little hole. She isn't in the mood, tonight. This probably isn't a good idea but it was close by and she is past caring. All she wants is a little peace. Her eyes wander vaguely about the murky room from sheer force of habit but she's not seeing anything, not taking it in. She doesn't know what she's playing at lately. Nothing seems to make her happy. Nothing gives her the satisfaction it used to. She hasn't even had a result that made her feel on top of the world in... she doesn't know how long, months. And all the people around her are just driving her nuts. Sean with his kicked puppy dog act and his endless bloody snoring. Pete with his little digs and snipes at work. Gill with her holier-than-Miss-Marple act and their weird little arrangement which always left her feeling stupid for some reason. Rachel's mind flicked back to the argument they had been having about the case. That woman who had been bugging Rachel's head all night. She doesn't know what's up with herself. She's being daft. In the morning she will have to apologise to Gill somehow, without letting on to the rest of the team, otherwise the boss will be unbearable for at least a day, maybe all week. The thought of it makes Rachel gulp a lot more wine down. That's going to be a fun conversation.

She is wallowing so deep in her own thoughts that she doesn't notice the woman approaching her, looking daggers, until she nearly staggers into her.

'What you playing at bitch?'

'Helen.' Rachel is astounded, slow to get her head back into the real world.

'Wha' you watching me for? Whaddoyou want with me?'

'Helen, I...' Rachel can see the tears in her eyes, even though her tone is aggressive.

'Y're notakin' me back in there, no. M'not going. M'not going t'be locked up. No. M'not goin' to let you lock me up.' Helen is right up in Rachel's face and Rachel can hear the fear behind the anger, feel the panic in her fast breaths, smell the alcohol thick on her breath.

'Helen.' Rachel pushes her glass far out of reach, focuses her eyes totally on Helen's, forces her own breathing to slow. She keeps her voice very quiet and firm, speaking through the swelling sense of danger.

'Helen, listen to me.' She waits while Helen's eyes skirt all round the place before she focuses, with difficulty, on Rachel.

'I am not here to arrest you. I'm not here to ask you any questions. I'm not even working.'

It takes a while for the words to register. Rachel feels something give with relief when she sees they finally do. Confusion slowly takes the place of rage in Helen's expression, and slowly the atmosphere eases of the knife-edge of tension. She rubs a hand over her face, her eyes, her mouth.

'Then why? Wha?' She is still staring at Rachel, still too close.

'I'm just here for a drink,' Rachel says, reaching for her wine glass again. A much-needed drink, she thinks. Helen licks her lips.

'I need a drink,' she says. Her head swivels round to locate a bartender.

Rachel watches her, wondering what the hell she ought to do now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Just a little addition, with the usual disclaimer that I'm making this up as I go along and I still don't know where it's going to. Thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed so far. I didn't plan to make this into a long thing but if you're still reading...**

* * *

'I thought you fancied me.'

This statement is so blunt and clear, coming out-of-nowhere, that Rachel nearly drops her glass. She has watched Helen order a double vodka, drink it and stare into the empty glass. She has nearly finished her wine. She has nearly decided that she should just get up and go. Now this.

'I'm sorry?' She wonders what she has done to give off that impression. And how on earth does Helen manage to sound so steady all of a sudden?

'When you came over in the shop earlier, err yesterday. You said my name. Do you... even remember?'

'I remember.' Rachel nods. She recalls the glint of excitement in Helen's eye, gone so fast that Rachel had dismissed it as her own imagination. As a police officer, she was used to causing unease, flurries of uncertainty when she introduced herself. Excitement was unusual.

'You said it nice. And you smiled.' Helen's voice sounds clearer now and she would fool most people into believing that she's sober. There's just something slightly off about the way she phrases things, her pauses. Rachel wonders how many drinks she's really had, how many she can handle. And should she tell the boss that she suspects Helen is a chronic alcoholic. How's she going to explain that leap of intuition?

Helen rolls her head back, lolls against the bar and looks sideways at Rachel. She looks more drunk like that but also more attractive. It's a calculated position, Rachel realises, and Helen is regarding her steadily, seriously.

'Did you?'

'What?'

'Fancy me?'

Rachel's eyes widen in warning. 'Helen.' She tries to keep her voice calm, on the professional side of gentle. 'I don't think this is an appropriate conversation for us to be having.'

'Oh... you're...' Helen starts laughing, slow and bitter. Rachel stares, baffled. She can't tell if there is anything conceivably funny in what she's said, if it's simply an indicator of Helen's drunkenness or if this woman is stranger than she realised. It's enough to make up her mind for her. She knocks back the last mouthful in her glass and chinks it down on the bar.

'I'm going now.'

Helen stops laughing.

'No, wait.' She places a hand over Rachel's. Rachel freezes, instincts bristling. Helen snaps her hand back.

'I'm sorry.' She is almost tearful again, her voice cracking. 'I'm being a nuisance, I'm sorry.' She sniffs and looks around her as if she has only just noticed where she is. 'I should... I should go home.'

Rachel thinks that if she has to cope with any more sudden mood swings or surprises tonight, she's going to have a heart attack. Adrenaline is pulsing through her bloodstream, her heart beating faster than normal. She takes a mental note of the way Helen reacted to her tension. She is familiar enough with violence that she can recognise it before it even forms, and she's frightened of it. More points of interest to tell Gill if she can think of some way to describe this encounter that sounds reasonable. If she can just extricated herself before anything worse happens. Helen lurches upright, still looking like someone who has recently recovered consciousness.

'Louise is... I should go... home.' Her eyes are huge and she stares at every person as if they are a threat.

'I've got to...' Helen starts to push through the crowd, heading for the exit. Rachel watches. When a girl, dancing, sways into her path she flinches, jerk sideways and knocks into a young man. He makes some comment and Helen reacts. Even from half way across the noisy room Rachel can hear her screaming and, although she can't make out the words, the look on Helen's face tells her it's pretty horrific. The lad has backed off but he's visibly bristling and Helen is teetering on the edge of collapse. Rachel's already out of her seat, cutting through the throng.

'This is just what I need.'


End file.
